Hall of Fame: The Case for Craig Biggio from Dan Peschong

As we continue the All Star break, Dan Peschong takes a look at one of Houston’s premier All Stars and his Hall of Fame credentials. Thursday, Chip returns with a recap and “awards” for the first half.

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One of the side discussions coming out of Chip’s recent “Is Altuve the next Biggio?” entry was the surprising amount of negativism towards Craig Biggio’s Hall of Fame candidacy. Obviously, blog comments can come from anywhere in the world and from members of other fan bases, but it was evident that a lot of these were from Houston Astro fans (or alleged fans), who don’t believe Biggio should sniff the Hall. This made me wax biblical and recall the quote, “No prophet is accepted in his own country”. OK, Craig is not the next Jesus Christ or even the next Tim Tebow, but there are a lot of people who judge him very harshly, especially for a local athlete.

The negative judgments seem to revolve around the following areas:

Biggio’s poor performance in the playoffs. I could point at Teddy Baseball on this one – but I will let it pass.

The feeling that he may be Mr. Sunshine Kids to the public, but a not-so-nice person elsewhere. There is no “nice” stat involved with the Hall of Fame (“Yo, Ty – Mr. Racist – Cobb”) and my only dealing with the man involved autographs for my sons, where he was sweet and engaging – “How dare he treat my kids so well and possibly be insincere” – shades of Don Johnson in Tin Cup. Note: None of us are always nice and a lot of us have private sides to our personalities and none of it matters in the Hall discussion.

That his stats are a bit padded because he played so long and that he was only very good, never great during his career.

That he selfishly pushed to be moved back to 2B and used his closeness with the Grocer to get put at the top of the lineup to reach the 3000 hits when his stats did not warrant it. I can’t argue the point – I don’t know if he manipulated the situation through Drayton or not. I do know that long term stars sometimes have a bit of a diva to them and have built up cache to cadge the system (e.g. Derek Jeter forcing A-Rod to move to 3B).

That his BA and OBP were not high enough and that he struck out too much to be a true Hall of Fame candidate. He also was not dominant in some of the more modern metrics – like WAR.

OK – rather than spend a lot of time refuting items – I am going to expend my energy on showing why Biggio should be in the Hall of Fame.

The Second Baseman Comparison

The following is my best shot (taken from baseball-almanac.com) of the players in the Hall who played primarily second base. Please, don’t play the “Well Biggio played a lot of other positions” card and shouldn’t be judged in the following group. A few of these gentlemen played 2B their whole career, but most played significant time at other positions – they just played the most games at 2B. And note – none of them played catcher or more than a passing game in the outfield.

If Craig Biggio was the 18th second baseman elected to the Hall of Fame, where would he fall in the order of things?

Hits – 4th

AVG – 15th – though it should be noted that for the most recent 2B’s – he trails Carew by a lot, and is slightly behind Sandberg and Fox, but beats out Morgan and Mazeroski.

OBP – 11th

SLG – 8th

HR – 2nd

RBI – 8th

Runs scored – 1st

SB – 5th

So, while not the top dog – it would be hard to look at his placement against the other 2B’s already in the Hall and say he does not belong in this company.

Biggio Against the World

What if you aren’t convinced by this comparison; what if you want to see how the Astros second baseman compares against Hall of Famers in general?

Hits – Craig Biggio is one of 28 human beings to reach 3000 hits in the majors with his career total of 3060 hits. Is this a reflection on him “sticking around” 20 years? Yes – longevity gets you on this list, only one player on the list ahead of him has logged in less than 20 years – and that one – Derek Jeter may get there yet. Of the top 40 players on the hits list (and Craig is 21st) the only ones are not in the Hall for either cause/suspicion (Rose, Palmeiro), or not being eligible (Bonds, Jeter).

Runs – Biggio is currently 14th on the all time list of runs scored in the majors. Again – the top 30 are in the Hall, except for the still active A-Rod and Jeter, and the usual suspects – Bonds and Rose.

He’s 5th all time in doubles, 31st in extra base hits, 31st in total bases, 31st in Runs Created, 17th in times on base, 16th in games played, 12th in at bats and on and on. In all of these categories he is surrounded by the glorious names of the game. More total bases than Banks, Simmons, Mantle, and Rickey Henderson, more runs scored than Robinson, Yastrzemski, Foxx and Wagner, more doubles than everyone but Speaker, Rose, Musial and Cobb….

Other stuff

He was also unique in a lot of ways – for instance:

I’m not sure who else has ever played significant time at catcher, 2B and the outfield, much less making the all star team at catcher and 2B.

2 players have hit 50 doubles and had 50 stolen bases in a year – they were Tris Speaker (Hall of Famer – of course) and Craig Biggio.

For what its worth – he is the only player in history to have 3000 hits, 600 doubles, 400 stolen bases, and 250 home runs and came close to joining Willie Mays as the only players with 3000 hits, 300 HR’s and 300 SB’s.

He made 6 All-Star teams, won 4 Golden Gloves and 5 Silver Sluggers

Bottom line – even with his faults (and those who follow any player see those the clearest) I believe Craig Biggio deserves his eventual enshrinement into Cooperstown for his overall body of work. You may not, and here’s your chance to give your two cents worth.